Furniture Refurb: 1970’s Salon Shampoo Chair

I am so excited about this project! I have had this salon chair for almost a year and have really been wanting to redo it to use as an outdoor piece, but wasn’t able to find the perfect fabric. When I heard about Creating with the Stars, a contest put on by East Coast Creative, my mind began racing and after consulting with my buddy Trisha at Black and White Obsession, I finally decided that this was the project that I wanted to enter.

I picked up this chair for a steal. Here it is before:

I thought it need some arm rests and did some Googling to see if I could find a similar chair to see what the arm rests looked like. This was all the info I had on it:

Before I go any further, if you’re just scrolling through, this post resembles what most would call a tutorial. But, the chances of finding a similar chair for such a price is slim, so creating a tutorial for this would just be silly. However, I am going to share with you all of the steps I went through, from start to finish. I attempted a few things and used some new tools with this project that I have never tried before and I am hoping to inspire you to tackle those crazy-insane projects floating around in your head. “I don’t know how to do that” just isn’t a good reason not to create the chair of your dreams, especially in the Google Information Age. Sometimes you just gotta cross your fingers and go for it. Do it! LEAP!

Since I intended for this to end up as an outdoor lounge chair, I knew that this backing material would have to go. Either that or somehow weather/waterproofed.

First things first. I took it all apart, snapping pics as I went so I didn’t forget how it was put together.

Once I removed the chair back, I loved how the hardware looked and I wondered if I could replace it with plexiglas… Keeping that idea in mind, I moved on, taking the whole thing apart.

I had some fabric in mind, Tula Pink’s Parisville Fans Cotton Laminate, (which I also used on these chairs) but unfortunately it was discontinued. I searched for it anyway… for days. Then I found it on ZeetZeet.com and had it in my hands within a couple days. Game on! I removed all the hardware and spray painted the wood with Rustoleum Painter’s Touch 2x Ultra Cover in Satin Green Apple. It really looks more like a minty-pistachio, whatever the name, it matched the fabric.

…and then repainted. While I was at Home Depot, I checked out the plexiglas. Ten bucks for a sheet that looked like it would do the trick. I brought it home and traced around the old back…

Next to the plexi at HD, I found a scoring blade, I grabbed that and took it home to try it out. Bust. All the sites I looked at on how to score plexi said to use a straight edge. But this has rounded corners so I decided to just score it free hand. I ended up going inside the lines and scratching it all up. This quickly became my test-plexi. Back to HD for another piece. I watched a couple other videos on cutting plexi and came across someone cutting it with a Dremel. That didn’t work for me either, it just melted the plastic. I knew I had something that I inherited from Mom called an All-In-One-Cutting Tool, but it was new in the box and I had never used it. No excuse. I Googled it and Bob Vila assured me it was super easy, so I went for it.

I clamped the plexi to my workbench and cut ‘er out, rotating the clamps and plexi as I went.

The edges were a bit jagged so I used my Dremel and sanding bit to smooth it out, leaving the plastic protective cover on so I didn’t muck it up before it got put on the chair.

Then I laid it on the chair, lined it up and drilled the holes for the screws.

I set that aside and moved to the arm rests. I had previously asked the Hubs to cut some wood for me for this part, but after using the All In One Cutting Tool, I knew I could do this on my own.

I traced around the arm and then used a mason jar as a stencil to it out. I traced that onto my wood and cut ’em out.

Then I clamped them together and used the same Dremel and sanding bit to smooth ’em out.

I lined them up on the arm rest to find where to drill the holes for the hardware to hold them on…

…the helpful guy in the hardware dept helped me find the right stuff.

Then I laid the wood on top of some 1″ scrap foam I had in my stash, traced ’em, cut ’em out…

… and hot glued ’em to the wood.

Then I wrapped it in some batting I had…

… and stapled it in place. I traced the arm rest onto the fabric, leaving room for a seam allowance, measured the sides of the arm rest all the way around and cut out a strip for the sides, sewed it all up, wrapped it around the arm rest, stapled it on and set it aside.

Back to the body of the chair:

The cardboard stabilizer in the chair was shot. I found an upholstery supply store near me and picked up this GIANT piece of… whatever this is called, for under $8 bucks!

I traced around it…

…and secured it with upholstery tacks.

Then I replaced the butt cushion, as well as the other cushion and wrapped the whole thing in batting.

On to the fabric; I laid out my old pieces and traced around each of them.

I even reused the piping from the old chair and made some matching piping.

I very carefully sewed all that together, using the old pieces as a guide.

I laid it on the chair, turned it over and pulled it taut while stapling.

I did the same for the chair back…

I knew this part needed to be nice and neat since it would be showing through the plexi, so I needed some piping or something to cover the staples. I ran to JoAnn and grabbed some that matched but got it home and didn’t like the way it looked, so I grabbed some cord from my stash and painted it using the paint leftover from my Bungee Beverage Koozie.

I let it dry and then hot glued it on. I stuck my screws into some of the leftover foam and spray painted them to match.

I also ordered some rubber feet from ebay (ten for 6 bucks) and spray painted those as well. Then it was all ready to put together. I couldn’t be happier with the end result and am completely amazed that it all turned out exactly as I imagined.

I had considered painting the frame. I have used Rustoleum’s Clean Metal Primer on my Jefferson’s Chair and it turned out great, but thought that might be too much for this gorgeous girl. I also found a tag under the chair when I was taking it apart…

Yeah, so, now that it’s done, I don’t think I can let her live outside. I think I will put this chair directly next to my bed, and when I wake up in the morning, roll over onto it before actually getting up.

Okay, here’s where I need your help. I’ve entered this into the Creating with the Stars competition and I would be super stoked to be a part of this Monica and Jess are super awesome (they won this contest a few years ago and now they have their own show and are hosts of ABC/Disney’s show “Knock It Off” on The Live Well Network) and Martha Stewart is involved! I need your vote! Actually, it’s not even a vote, it’s a simple click. No registering, no leaving your name, nothin’, just a click. Go to http://eastcoastcreativeblog.com/2014/03/creating-stars-2014-contest-link.html and click on the pic of this chair, it’s number 195.

I hope this has inspired you to tackle something new and crazy. You can do it!

Comments

I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to find your tutorial. I recently purchased the exact same chair. I am just starting redoing mine but I wanted to thank you for the great ideas and inspiration you provided. Mine had been reupholstered in a orange vinyl in December of 1972. and the frame is gold. According to the information I have it was made by the A.M. Beauty Supply Co. in St. Louis, MO. The only big difference I can see is that mine has rounded teak armrests. I can send you a photograph if you would like to see them. I did have a question for you concerning the frame…was it chromed?

Thank you, Cara! I wish I could tell you how its holding up, but, I’ve been too scared to put her outside! If you are using outdoor fabrics, it will be fine, but this was laminated cotton and since I wasn’t CERTAIN that it would be okay, I just left her inside. I did a lot of reading about it and laminated cotton seems to be one of those things that is weather-resistant but not weather-PROOF.

What an awesome (I mean groovy…wrong decade) transformation! I am amazed by the skillful work you put into it. I never would have given something like this a second thought! Had to feature you on Project Inspire{d}. Look out for it tomorrow night (Monday 4/28).

Lovely! You are awesome and inspire me….I only have two little 5-year-old’s holding me back…but one day when they are teenagers and can wipe their own butts and bathe themselves and get themselves dressed without putting on their clothes backwards….I am totally going to figure out how to do projects like this! 🙂 I clicked for you! I hope you win! 🙂

You’ve cemented your way into my BBFF (best blogging friend forever) Category for life! Glad I’ve scooped you up because GIRL your imagination is off the charts!! Seriously, blew me away. I TOTALLY knew you could do it!!

Off to pimp you out worse than a $5 hooker (hmm… I need to work on my references)!!

Alright, so I got through your post (I was too excited not to leave *hopefully* the first comment :p). Seriously, that pexi-glass thing was TOTALLY 100% worth the effort, and then some! Seeing the ‘inner workings’ of the chair like that is the icing on the cake. Well done girl!

P.S. thanks for offering sooo many tips that is pushing me to 1. find an awesome chair like that and 2. start tackling these reupholster shenannagans!

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